Elapse
by ksfd89
Summary: Oneshot from Luke's POV set during the end of Luke Can See Her Face. Gilmore Girls doesn't belong to me. I hope you enjoy it!


**This is a oneshot from Luke's POV set at the end of Luke Can See Her face, during the night after Luke and Jess have their conversation in the diner. Gilmore Girls isn't mine. Hope you all enjoy it!**

He loves her. He doesn't always like her but he loves her, down to her very bones. That's an expression his father used to use – he'd hold Luke's mom in his arms and say, _I love you to your very bones_. It was rare, though. The Danes family didn't go in for affection and after she died, Luke's dad didn't say it all. He wouldn't even put out photos of her. Luke remembers one afternoon, watching his father unload boxes and he pressed him, asking what he used to say to Mom, and finally his father snapped, _for God's sakes, stop jabbering and help with these boxes, make yourself useful. _So he did and he never asked again.

Luke coughs, thumping the stereo more necessarily than he needs to. No point in dragging all that up again. They're both dead now. His mother's been as dead as long as he's been an adult, yet her face fills Luke's mind, slightly blurred, and he imagines her smiling. She would have liked Lorelai.

He doesn't always like her. Lorelai drives him nuts. The way she talks, on and on a million words for a sentence and that endless obsession for coffee. It's bad enough that she drinks so much of the stuff but she's handed it down to her kid, too. Luke's had to double his stocks just for them alone. With all the junk in her system Lorelai should show it but she looks healthy, she looks perfect and Luke coughs again, staring at the stereo. He's glad Jess has gone out, even if it's probably to smoke. He'd feel embarrassed thinking all this if his nephew were here.

Luke remembers the first day he met Lorelai. This wild young woman came running into his diner, hair streaming and eyes wide and desperately begged for coffee. She wouldn't take no for an answer. She begged and begged him and then, bizarrely, asked his starsign and Luke was so weary he told her just to shut her up. She grabbed a piece of paper, scribbled something down and when he handed it over he read : _Scorpio. You will meet an annoying woman today. Give her coffee and she will go away._

He laughed, against his better judgement, and while he gave her coffee, she didn't go away. Somehow Luke didn't mind. The diner cleared and he found himself talking to her, finding out she had a kid – a kid! – and had just moved into Stars Hollow. She wasn't from here, she was from Hartford and the father of the kid was nowhere to be seen. He could tell she didn't like talking about her old life, even though she didn't say it, so conversation steered back to her new place in Stars Hollow and how she'd just moved out of the Independence Inn, where she worked. _It's a good thing Rory's so low maintenance _he remembers her saying. _That kid's an angel. _He found out she named her after herself, made a joke about being high on painkillers, asked about him but Luke didn't say much, didn't need to. She could talk enough for both of them. He met Rory that same afternoon, a kid with the sweetest smile and a pile of books as high as she was. He gave her a whole table to spread them out, ignoring the other customers, and his heart melted as she thanked him. He loved that kid more than anything and still does. Luke can't imagine a day where the Gilmore girls aren't walking into his diner.

_At least I'm not sitting around hoping she'll call. _Luke recalls the smugness of his nephew's tone and after the initial anger, after Jess had stalked out, he sat down and pondered the words. Did Jess think he was _into_ Lorelai? He wasn't into Lorelai! The woman drove him crazy! She babbled and drank all his coffee and talked him into things, like painting his diner, and making him rearrange food on her plate. She had no grasp on reality and sometimes she made him really angry, like acting like Jess was a bad kid, and being stubborn as hell and yes, he always forgave her and missed her not being there, but _into _her...Luke had sat still for ten minutes staring at the door like a moron.

So he liked her being around. He liked her breezing into the diner every morning, no matter how deranged she sounded. He liked how she shopped for him, when he couldn't buy gifts, how she painted the diner and freshened it up, how she always makes him look on the bright side, though he'd rather decorate for Taylor than admit it. So when they didn't talk that summer he was miserable. So he built a huppa for her and made her a Santa burger – so what? He just wanted to see her happy. That didn't mean he was_ into_ her.

Luke groans as he remembers this. He sounds like a teenage kid in one of those dumb movies Lorelai likes to watch. You know it's bad when Jess can see through you. Luke scratches his head, forgetting the stupid tape in the stereo. He hadn't talked to his nephew for three months, not had a real conversation with him for a year, and he already seems so much older. It's only been twelve months and Jess is a curious mixture of a nineteen-year-old kid and a boy who has a look of sadness in his eyes. He still makes his sarcastic remarks but there's a seriousness there which Jess didn't have before, and his sighs are heavier. And his revelation this evening – he loves Rory! He's afraid to see her! Luke didn't believe him for a moment, but now it makes perfect sense. It's written all over him. Time doesn't always change how you feel. God knows, Luke is a case of that.

He failed his nephew. Anyone can see it. He was mad at Jess, furious at him but more with himself and he didn't mean it when he told Jess to leave. He was just angry, but all parents get angry with their kids, right? Okay, Lorelai doesn't seem to get mad at Rory but she came out perfectly behaved. Luke can't fathom Rory doing anything worse than stealing a pen. So there was that day, back when she was sixteen, when she went off to Hartford without telling anyone, but that was a fluke, it seems, and she came right back. Luke wishes Jess had come right back but he knew he wouldn't, and he didn't. Is it being a Danes or is just Luke screwing up? Probably both. Luke goes over their fight over and over, how he could no longer take it, Jess's attitude and sneering comments about working in a diner. Like it was so easy. Like he was going anywhere, which is what scares Luke the most. Jess is smart, smarter than anyone else in this family put together, but he doesn't care. He doesn't want to study, he didn't want to graduate high school and Luke is terrified that one day he'll end up like his father meandering through life, running from any responsibility. That's why he yelled. He was scared. And then, when Jess came back a few months ago, he yelled at Luke for trying to _fix _everything. The words felt like a punch and Jess looked as though he loathed him and, despite it all, Luke tried. He can't stand things being broken.

Still, maybe things haven't turned out as badly as Luke feared. Maybe his words do have some effect. Jess has come here after all, to see Liz get married, and he says it's because it's important to Luke. Hopefully he'll see something good for his mother. The groom's a grown man with an Etch-a-Sketch but he loves Liz, which is more than most of her boyfriends did. Luke thinks it will last. Jess doesn't hate Liz, he doesn't hate Luke, and while Jess still seems lost he's listening. He came back. His nephew is full of surprises. He told Rory he loved her back in winter, which Luke had no clue of until this evening, as neither Jess nor Rory breathed a word of it. And then he drove off without telling her...Luke groans, and it's not just at Jess. Of course he did. It's the kind of thing he'd have done, at Jess's age, and Luke can still see the appeal. Jess is braver than him in that respect. Luke would never dare tell a girl he loved her when he was nineteen, he was afraid to try. It's not as if Jess has had the greatest example, he guesses – not from Liz or from him either. Luke admires him for saying it at all.

Luke wants his nephew to do better, not just with that, but with everything else. Why doesn't Jess want to do more than live in that filthy apartment, washing dishes for a living? He'd help, if Jess asked. He doesn't care how hard it is, how long it takes to help him get on track. Luke knows Jess could do it. His nephew is worth it. That's what he should have said, back in summer. He should have said that, followed him to where he was going, told him he cared, but he didn't. The Daneses are too proud for that. He said Jess was eighteen and could look after himself and Lorelai saw through him too. Dammit, why does everyone in this town know everyone's business?

The surly mood is back and Luke is grateful for it. The stereo has been playing up for the past hour and Luke is taking pleasure in dismantling it, hitting it hard. He's going to fix it, though he tries not to think about how that will mean listening to his stupid tape. If anyone found out he bought a tape and a fruity self-help book...Luke gulps and frowns. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It has to be better than sitting around like a dope, figuring out you are in love with that infuriating, incredible woman and not having a damn clue how to say it. Luke almost envies Jess, being able to just blurt it out. It's not as if anyone else can offer advice on this. He likes Jackson but they hardly go in for talks over beer. His dad is dead but even if he weren't Luke has a hard time imagining him having any sage words of wisdom. William Danes did not give out fatherly advice. Luke can't fathom how his father even managed to talk to his mother, let alone marry her and there it is again, the dormant sadness as he remembers her and her gentle smile. Maybe she would have something to say but it's no use. There's no use missing her and Luke bangs the stereo once more.

He's going to figure it out somehow. He is not going to end up like Louie, an old grouch who lived and died an embittered man. He doesn't want to end up like his parents either, who barely talked by the time his mother died. Luke is not about to start joining in the town festivals, decorating his store and joining parades like a maniac, but he doesn't want to live alone forever, without anyone at all. He even likes relationships, just not the stuff that goes with it, like having to go out as a couple and start doing things like buying furniture at the weekend. The hell with that. He managed it with Rachel, when she wasn't hopping on planes, and he misses it. He doesn't miss her as much anymore, but he misses it – having a partner you're comfortable with. He tried to get it back with Nicole but it didn't work, and the things he didn't mind with Rachel, like going out for dinner, bothered him with her. It was, as Jess so succinctly put it, _weird_. It has to be the right person and, as the tape so maddeningly says, _Whose face?_ Lorelai. It's always been Lorelai. Her reckless air and strong independence, which Luke has always loved in women, he loves in Lorelai most of all. He wishes he had the words to tell her.

When he's done with this book and hopefully this tape, he'll give to Jess. Luke's not the only one who's floundering with this love thing. Luke wants Jess to make up with Rory. Even if they don't get back together he at least wants them to talk. He's sad things fell apart between them. She was good for him and she always seemed more relaxed with Jess, laughing more and having less of that worried frown he sees sometimes. He misses seeing them swap books, debate things which made no sense to Luke but made them smile. The goofy expressions they got around each other. He didn't say that to them of course, he was more concerned on keeping their hormones under control. He didn't want Rory getting pregnant any more than Lorelai did and after that comment she made, about the briefness of Rory's conception, he doubled his trips up there, much to his nephew's chagrin. It seems like ancient history now. It's only been a year but they both seem older than simply twelve months. Luke wants them to work it out, for Rory's sake as much as Jess's.

Luke loves Rory as much as if she were his own child. He has to remind himself she's no longer the little girl who'd sit in the diner with so many books, she's nineteen, nearly twenty but he forgets that a lot. It only feels like the other day she was wearing angel wings and asking him to go to her caterpillar's funeral and he did, too, and wore a suit. Rory cried on his arm, left a wet patch. He'd do anything for that kid. When she had chickenpox he made her mashed potato, bowls of it, held her hands so she wouldn't scratch and when she graduated from Chilton he cried, as proud as her father. Not that her actual father is much use. Luke curls his lip, remembering how he didn't come to Stars Hollow until Rory was sixteen and how, when he came back the following year, for that dumb coming out party and that school speech, Rory acted like he'd handed her the moon. What a swell father, not coming to visit his child until she started high school, and even then not bothering to come back for months. He didn't even go to her graduation. And the way he shouted at Lorelai too, for being honest with him that time. It was the worst thing to see and hear. Luke wishes he'd said something, told Christopher what a jerk he was, but he didn't. He pretended he wasn't hearing it, seeing Lorelai hold back tears. He told himself it wasn't his business, but it was. It was his business seeing his friend get hurt. That's probably half the reason Lorelai has such a hard time talking about stuff. She's stubborn as hell and won't admit it but he can see it, her proud hurt. That family screwed her up, her mom, her dad and that jerk who got her pregnant with Rory. Hell, Luke's not the poster boy for communication but at least he'll admit it. Lorelai pretends she doesn't need any help at all. It kills him that she acts like Christopher is someone she should be with, like she owes him something. She's too good for him. Luke remembers Sookie's wedding, after Christopher promised to be around and then went back to his girlfriend, the look on Lorelai and Rory's faces. He had to admit he was glad he was gone but he was sad at the same time. It was the same guilty relief as when she didn't marry that teacher. He wants both of them to be happy.

Jess and Rory could both use better fathers. Jimmy coming back screwed everything up. Luke hates him more than he hates Christopher. The guy hadn't been around for the best part of eighteen years and then just strolls into the diner, to_ look_ at his son. Jimmy hadn't even looked at so much as a photograph before that. Luke gets why his nephew was angry that he didn't tell him, but Jimmy didn't have the right to decide to be a father, wander in and out of his kid's life. Luke's wanted to protect Jess since the moment he held him, right after he was born. That's why he didn't tell Jess Jimmy was in town. Jess deserves better than a father who skipped out the moment he had a son. Luke remembers that, how Jimmy said he was going out for diapers and then realising he wasn't coming back anytime soon and how Liz cried, Jess in her arms, how awful it was. Luke swore to always be there for Jess, especially as his actual father never would be. Luke knew Jess seeing his father would mess him up and it did, it screwed everything up. It broke Luke's heart to know Jess was going to his father, who'd never even sent him a birthday card. Luke always tried to send him a card, and money, on his birthday, though he's not sure how many arrived. His sister liked to move a lot. That's another thing Luke should have done, gone to see them, but it was always so complicated and Liz always seemed so mad, mad at him for having money and not living in a squalid apartment with a little kid. He'd give her money but he knew it wasn't enough. Liz started going off the rails years ago, right when they lost their mom. Luke should have talked to her about it but he was a kid too, it was hard on him too, and he was busy helping with the store while Liz was out doing God knows what. He remembers the day she announced she was pregnant. Their father told her she was a crazy fool and then died a month later, never meeting his grandson, and Liz gave Jess the middle name _William_ in his honour. Luke sees his father in Jess sometimes, that wry wit, the sarcastic sense of humour. The old sense of determination which sparks up sometimes. The refusal to talk.

Still, they talked tonight. They got into a punch-up at a strip club – it sounds like a bad joke – and then _talked_. Jess let go of his sullen expression and looked at him, without anger or defence in his eyes. It was, what that book likes to call, a _breakthough_. The expression makes Luke roll his eyes but he's happy, he can't lie about that and doesn't want to. His nephew opened up to him. He was awkward and clearly uncomfortable but he told his uncle the truth, about how he felt and missing Rory and telling her he loved her. Luke scrambled in his brain for parental advice and ended up reciting passages from the book, which Jess dismissed as Bette Midler junk. It may well be, but there's truth in it, Luke thinks. A stupid smile spreads across his face as he forgets about the stereo for a moment, thinking. He had a decent conversation with his nephew and Luke feels a father's pride. He's missed Jess a lot this year, knowing he should have gone to New York, and he's missed Rory too. Luke worries about her. He hasn't voiced this, Lorelai would laugh. What is there to worry about? Rory is finishing up her freshman year with flying colours, at one of the best schools in the country. She's happy and healthy and will surely carry on as well next year. Luke shakes his head at himself but he can't help it. He's worried. It's the same sense of when he gets the gut feeling, when he meets someone. Something in his gut says something's not right.

Luke's noticed it all year. She comes home a lot, at weekends, and whenever she comes in the diner she has a tired look in her eyes, a hidden frown. She doesn't carry a book around. She smiles and hugs him and eats as much as her mother, laughs with Lane, but Luke can sense a kind of sadness. She's lost the carefree happiness she had when she was at Chilton, cut off all her hair. Rory seems to have grown so much than a year. It's not even thirty miles away but he thinks about her, alone in her dorm room, away from home. Luke hopes she isn't lonely. She doesn't talk about stuff, she never did, but he can see she doesn't want to go back to her room, how happy she is about coming home for summer. He understands it. He wouldn't even go away for college. She didn't have many friends at that fancy school of hers but it was different, it didn't bother her. She had all her friends here. Rory hasn't said any of this but she doesn't need to. She keeps it to herself, like him, like Jess, like her mother, which Lorelai would kill him for if she heard him say.

Luke is happy Rory's coming home but he doesn't want everything to be like last year. The other night, as he was throwing out the trash, he saw her walking with Dean. Luke stopped to make sure, though he already knew, and it wasn't the simple talk of two friends catching up. He frowned. Dean is married now. He should be staying away from Rory, after what he drunkenly told Luke right before his wedding. Jess isn't the only one who loves her. Luke thinks this marriage was a ridiculous decision, a huge mistake – yes, he knows it's rich coming from him – but Dean made his choice and he broke up with Rory. He did so in a horrible, cruel way which made Luke want to kill him. He shouldn't be walking around with her late at night, his arm curling around hers. The sight left a bad taste in Luke's mouth. He kept it to himself – it's not as if they were kissing – but he doesn't trust it, doesn't trust Dean. He's never liked the kid. He told Jess to stay away from them, but only because he didn't want him getting involved. If he were honest, he thinks Rory and Dean should have split up long ago, wasn't thrilled like Lorelai when they started seeing each other again, back when Rory was sixteen. Luke's glad he hit him, that time he tried to go in the diner when they broke up. That jerk, thinking he could do better than Rory. Luke thought Dean getting married would put all that behind them but now, he worries, it hasn't. He worries Rory will do something she'll regret.

Luke wishes he could talk to Rory the same way as he did Jess. He wishes they, too, could sit in the diner and talk, and Rory would let go of her frown and open up. She talks all the time to her mother but Luke knows it's not about that. It's not his business, she's not his daughter, yet it feels like she is. He loves her like she is. He wants her to talk about what's troubling her; Yale, loneliness, what happened with Jess. Luke can't say he'd have the best advice – the book didn't cover early adulthood crises – but he'd listen to her, let her get it all out. He thinks that'd help. He remembers how she came in that time, years ago, after the accident she got into with Jess and told him it wasn't Jess's fault. He was never so proud of her. She's always done that, stuck up for his nephew when no one else will, and there she was with a broken arm not pretending anything else. It was no one's fault, they were just being teenagers. He didn't say that, though. He simply said he knew it wasn't and then he made Rory a burger. They didn't need to say anything else. He wishes she'd come back, talk to him again, but she hasn't and Luke knows she won't. This time she's mad at Jess but Luke doesn't hold it against her. He fears she's scared to talk and wishes he could tell her it's alright. She puts too much pressure on herself.

Luke shakes his head and cautiously presses a button on the stereo. It whirrs into life and a loud voice goes back to love. Luke jumps, winces and turns it down, in case Jess walks in, but the apartment is silent and there's no step on the stair. The last of the tape is fairly bland, simply thanking Luke for going on this journey and Luke makes a sarcastic reply and then laughs. He and his nephew have more in common than he thinks. The tape finishes and Luke winds it back, placing it back in the box with the books. He thinks the whole thing is dumb but his palms feel sweaty all the same, his mouth dry, at what he's planned to do tomorrow. He's decided to ask Lorelai to Liz's wedding, then maybe to a dinner or something, and is terrified at the thought. He knows he won't live with himself if he doesn't ask, but the idea is scarier than if he were Jess's age. If anything, it's worse, because adults should know how to do this stuff and teenagers are meant to be awkward. Jeez. Luke closes his eyes and thinks back to his nephew's remark earlier. _Ah, we're just a pair of losers_. Luke wanted to laugh out loud. It sounded about right, but who knows. Maybe tomorrow things will change. He may be the most dysfunctional person Jess knows, but he's going to do something about it. He has.

As he's putting the stereo away Luke hears something, and this time it's definitely someone coming up. Jess walks in, unzipping his jacket, and looks at his uncle.

"What's with you?"

"Nothing."

"Why the dumb grin?"

"No reason. You want some pie? I saved some from earlier."

Jess grunts in acknowledgement, goes into his old room which Luke has kept the same. He'll give him the tapes tomorrow, dare Jess to laugh. He likes books, it won't kill him to read this. Maybe it'll help them both. Maybe Lorelai will agree to his invitation, perhaps even to dinner. Maybe Jess will get the courage to go back to Rory, talk to her and explain and maybe, even if she doesn't want to be with him again, they'll work things out. Maybe Luke and Jess will talk some more, before he goes, and Luke will say all the things he's wanted to say this past year: tell his nephew none of it matters, what they said, how they let each other down. That he's always there for Jess no matter what, that he can always come back to him. Hug him tightly.

Jess emerges and stares.

"_What?"_

"What do you mean, what?"

"You're being weird."

"I'm being weird? You're the one who's quizzing me on my expression. Go get the pie."

"Jeez, relax already," Jess snaps but he smiles at Luke as he goes to the fridge. Luke smiles back and he doesn't tell his nephew the image in his mind: him and Lorelai, Jess and Rory, starting over and sitting in the diner, all four of them together. It would sound stupid to say out loud. Instead, he grabs a fork and sits beside his nephew.

"Do you, uh, want to watch something later?"Luke asks awkwardly, pre-empting his nephew's expression. "A game or something?"

"A _game_?"

"Or a movie," Luke coughs. "I know you're not into sports."

"Yeah, something like that," Jess comments. "How about _Beaches_?"

Luke stares in disbelief.

"_Beaches_?"

"Since you're so into Bette Midler," Jess says, his face straight. Luke scoffs and gently cuffs his elbow.

"Get out of here, wise guy."

They both laugh, banter some more and Luke relaxes. He can't predict the future, can't tell how tomorrow will go, but knows one thing: he and Jess will be okay. That's more than enough. He thinks, too, the rest is more than just hope, but doesn't say so. Luke simply smiles at his nephew. They're figuring it out.


End file.
